The Hand of Redemption
by Adaman
Summary: Witch Hunter Azrael Tibrus offers the seldom-seen hand of redemption to a heretic.


Witch hunter Azrael Tibrus strode into the damp chamber. He was clad in a brown leather coat, a wide-brimmed hat, and pale blue leggings. His black boots stretched up to his knees, and his silvery hair fell from his face in a neat braid. His face was hard and cold, frozen by decades of hunting and executing heretics and rebels.

Tibrus was accompanied by a lexmechanic, an ancient servitor who had undergone extensive augmentation to implant tools of writing and notarization into his once-human hands and fingers. The servitor carried itself on tracks similar to tank treads, and was clad in a white cowled robe with purity seals and High Gothic holy-writ.

The boots made a clunking sound upon the cobblestone floor as he walked to reach the door. A hunched-over man of well over three hundred years stood at the gate, a set of data-keys held in his sickly, bony fingers. Blood and spittle hung from broken teeth, and eyeless sockets stared into the darkness.

"Door, please" the inquisitor said.

"Identification" said the vox trasponder implanted into the hunched man's face. The man held up a small analyzation device, which Tibrus pressed his signet ring into. A series of beeps followed, and the hunched man opened the cast-iron gate into the Hall of Hell, as the prisoners and guards both called it.

God-Emperor, the air was putrid. Filled with the stench of death, urine, and bile, schiz-flies buzzed around everywhere. And the sounds. Prisoners crying in their sleep, and in their wake, for they knew what the Emperor had prepared for them. Some of the farther-gone were laughing, even singing the foul hymns of their impure and heretical religions. Some would cry out for forgiveness or salvation, reaching out at Tibrus, who recoiled in disgust.

At the end of the row of cells was an empty one. Or, rather, you might think it were empty, for the inhabitant never called out, or cried, or laughed, or sang, but simply sat there. This was the man that Tibrus had come for.

Hanis Exodur had been revered in the hierarchy of the Sect of the Shattered Eye, second only to Teresh Hyerdoule himself. Hyerdoule had been disposed of previously, credit due entirely to the cunning and perfection of Witch Hunter Tibrus, and so Exodur remained.

Exodur was a broken, twisted shell of a man. Vestigial horns had begun to sprout from his taut-skinned forehead, and his eyes had both been scarred shut by his own leathery fingers. The horrid icon of the undivided powers of chaos was etched into his flesh all over, on his shoulders, arms, flesh, head, ect. His fingers were abnormally long, and his teeth were yellowed and filed to points.

Tibrus walked to the cell, rodents scurrying from every footfall, the servitor rolling up behind him.

"Hanis Exodur" the powerful voice of the celebrated witch hunter echoed through the room, uttering the cursed name"I have come to make one final offer to you. If you will elect to save yourself from the fate of damnation which you have chosen, I may be able to keep you from the fires of hell, and purify you through death. Denounce the heathen gods you serve and cry for the light of the Emperor"

Exodur raised his head to face Tibrus, which was in itself unsettling, what with the scarred-shut eyes. But Tibrus could sense the thick contempt in the air between them.

Exodur cocked his head back, and spit right on Tibrus' coat. The saliva was thick with vile liquids not fit to be mentioned in any unholy tome.

"Very well then" Tibrus snarled. He fired a lance of psychic energy, throwing the heretic into the stone wall. Exodur slumped to the cobblestone with a screech, leaving a trail of blood down the wall. He was silent, but for his heavy breathing.

"You have once more condemned yourself in the sight of myself and the God-Emperor. You have commended your soul into the foul clutches of your own damned gods. I can only pray that the Emperor looks down upon you with the contempt you deserve as you burn for eternity."

Witch Hunter Azrael Tibrus turned to leave, his heavy boots once again making their distinctive, dull thud against the floor, followed by the whirring of the lexmechanic's scripting devices as it recorded and notarized the heretic's death sentence.


End file.
